Trump one of least liked presidents ever as Obama's popularity soars

Two new polls shows Barack Obama’s retrospective approval is up, securing his legacy in the eyes of Americans.

According to a recent Gallup poll, Barack Obama has a 63% approval rating, securing his legacy in the eyes of Americans. The poll is the first to measure Obama’s job approval rating in retrospect, a rating that puts him in fourth place behind JFK, Reagan, and Bush Sr. in the ranking of the 10 most recent presidents. Richard Nixon takes the last spot with only a 28% approval rating.

The poll has been asking Americans to rate former presidents since 1990, and this recent batch of results released in February show Obama’s rating grew slightly since the measurement at the end of his presidency in January 2017. A president’s retrospective rating tends to be closer to their final rating as president than the ratings received during their term.

"Mr Trump was ranked close to the “terrible” end of a scale of 1 to 10, landing the third spot ahead of only Lyndon Johnson and disgraced Richard Nixon at the bottom.

Mr Obama was rated 6.15 in the presidential popularity stakes – only beaten to top of the “excellent” end of the scale by Ronald Reagan (6.29) and John F. Kennedy (6.56) in the ranking of presidents who served since the early 1950s."

Historically, the retrospective ratings for ex-presidents’ tend to stabilize after they have been out of the office for awhile, but it would not be very unusual to see a little more movement in Obama’s ratings these first few years after his presidency. If his ratings continue to trend upwards, he may just join Kennedy and Reagan in the upper echelon.